Innovations
and interesting points about TeaThroughout the centuries, mankind has sought
to improve his lot and make life more interesting and easier for
himself. We call this sort of mucking around 'innovation'. When
it works well it's worth the effort and everyone says so –
sometimes, there is even money involved
if the inventor is wise and lucky. Much innovation though has come
through sheer luck and serendipity – without the use of wisdom
at all and yes, there is still money involved.

Iced
Tea

Iced
tea was used throughout the 1800's and many recipe books show this.
However, it was 're-invented' or at least popularised around the
beginning of the twentieth century, when its popularity was 'born
out of necessity'. It happened during the 1904 St. Louis World's
Fair. Trader Richard Blechynden was a tea plantation owner and was
exhibiting at the fair, where he intended to give away hot tea to
visitors. However, there was a heatwave and no one was interested
in hot tea, so he hit on the idea of putting ice into the brew and
served it ‘iced’. It was apparently a huge hit and caught
on like never before.

Tea bags

Another
tea merchant named Thomas Sullivan of New York developed the concept
of ‘bagged tea’ in 1908. It was his practice to send
out samples of his tea, which he carefully wrapped in silk bags,
to
hotels and restaurants. The
samples were purely for their consideration, but he soon realized
that they were brewing the tea ‘unwrapped’ to avoid
the mess of tea leaves and when they commented that the silk was
too fine to let out the flavour, he accommodated them by switching
to gauze.

The
implications for a wider market were taken up in the 1920's, when
the production of tea bags really took off and were eventually made
from paper.

Delayed
by both tradition and the enforced shortages of the Second World
War, tea bags did not become common in Britain until the 1950's,
when they were driven on to the market by a company called Tetley,
who started marketing them widely in 1953. However, they were still
not greatly popular in Britain even by the 1960's, when their use
was still only 3% of the British Market compared to today's 96%.